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Perennial Rice | Earth Wise

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People have been cultivating rice for more than 9,000 years.  Cultivated rice is an annual crop which is often extended to two crops a year by a process called ratooning, which is cutting back annual rice to obtain a second, weaker harvest.

An extensive project involving multiple institutions in China, the U.S., and Australia has been developing perennial rice.  The researchers developed it through hybridization, crossing a type of Asian domesticated annual rice with a wild perennial rice from Africa.  Using modern genetic tools to identify candidate plants, the team identified a promising hybrid in 2007, planted large-scale field experiments in 2016, and released the first commercial perennial rice variety, called PR23, in 2018.

The researchers spent five years studying the performance of the perennial rice alongside annual rice on farms in China’s Yunnan Province.  For the most part, the yield of the perennial rice was equivalent to that of annual rice over a period of four years. 

Because farmers don’t have to plant rice each season, growing perennial rice requires almost 60% less labor and saves nearly half the costs of seed, fertilizer, and other inputs.

Perennial rice is already changing the lives of more than 55,000 smallholder farmers in southern China and Uganda.  The economic benefits vary by location, but overall profit increases ranged from 17% to 161% over annual rice.

There are already three perennial rice varieties available to farmers, but researchers aren’t done refining the crop.  They plan to use their methodology to enhance traits such as aroma, disease resistance, and drought tolerance to newer versions.

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Farmers in China, Uganda move to high-yielding, cost-saving perennial rice

Photo, posted February 25, 2002, courtesy of Matthieu Lelievre via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A Miracle Tree | Earth Wise

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The world needs to be fed without destroying the environment.   We need to grow more trees to store more carbon on earth and reduce the amount in the atmosphere.  But meanwhile, we decimate rainforests to produce palm oil and grow soybeans.

A startup company in California called Terviva thinks they have a solution.  It’s called pongamia, which is an ordinary looking tropical tree.  It produces beans packed with protein and oil, much like soybeans.  However, it has the potential to produce much more nutrition per acre than soybeans and it is hardy enough to grow on pretty much any kind of land without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, or irrigation.  In short, it is a miracle crop for a hot and hungry planet that is running out of fertile farmland and fresh water.

Pongamia is not a new or rare tree.  It is common in India but grows all over the world.  It is often planted as an ornamental here in the U.S.

The initial idea for making use of the hardy tree was to use its oil as a biofuel.  The seeds of pongamia are known to have a bitter taste and disagreeable odor, which is why the seeds or oil were never used for human or animal feed.  However, Terviva has developed a way to de-bitter pongamia oil.  Once this is done, it becomes a golden-colored substitute for olive oil. It also has enormous potential as a protein for plant-based milks and meats, since it contains all nine essential amino acids.

Terviva has raised more than $100 million to further develop pongamia and is now partnering with Danone, a $25 billion multinational food company, to develop pongamia as a climate-friendly, climate-resilient, non-GMO alternative to soy and palm oil.

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This super-tree could help feed the world and fight climate change

Photo, posted December 15, 2015, courtesy of Lauren Gutierrez via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Climate Change And Farming Productivity | Earth Wise

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The future potential impacts of anthropogenic climate change on global agricultural systems has been well studied, but how human-caused climate change has already affected the agricultural sector is not as well understood.  But a new study led by researchers at Cornell University and supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation examined this issue. 

Despite important agricultural breakthroughs in technology, fertilizer use and global trade during the past 60 years, it turns out that the climate crisis is already eroding farm productivity.  According to the study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change, global farming productivity is 21% lower than it could have been without climate change.  This is the equivalent of losing approximately seven years of farm productivity increases since the 1960s. 

The researchers developed a model linking annual changes in weather and productivity with output from the latest climate models over six decades to quantify the effect of anthropogenic climate change on what economists call “total factor productivity.” This measure captures the overall productivity of the agricultural sector. 

The research team reviewed 200 variations of the model, but the results remained largely consistent:  anthropogenic climate change is already slowing down global food production.  The researchers say the historical impacts of climate change have been larger in naturally warmer climates, like in parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.   

Climate change is not some distant problem to solve in the future.  It is already having an impact on the planet and it needs to be addressed now.

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Climate change cut global farming productivity 21% since 1960s

Photo, posted October 2, 2013, courtesy of the United Soybean Board via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Conspicuous Consumption

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Human civilization consumes vast amounts of material.   The Circle Economy think tank actually puts some numbers on it.  According to their latest report, the amount of material consumed by humanity has passed 100 billion tons every year.  So, on average, every person on Earth uses more than 13 tons of materials per year.

That number has quadrupled since 1970, which is far faster than the population, which has only doubled during that time.  In the past two years alone, consumption has jumped by more than 8%.  While this has been going on, the proportion being recycled has been falling.

Of the 100 billion tons of materials, half of the total is sand, clay, gravel, and cement used for building, along with other minerals used for fertilizer.  Coal, oil and gas make up 15% and metal ores 10%. The final quarter are plants and trees used for food and fuel.  About 40% of all materials are turned into housing.  A third of the annual materials consumed remain in use, such as in buildings or vehicles.  But 15% is emitted into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases and a third is treated as waste.

The global emergencies of climate change and disappearing wildlife have been driven by the unsustainable extraction of fossil fuels, metals, building materials, and trees.  The authors of the report warn that if we continue to treat the world’s resources as limitless, we are heading for a global disaster.

The Circle Economy think tank promotes the idea of a circular economy in which renewable energy supports systems where waste and pollution are reduced to zero.  Some nations are taking steps towards circular economies, while others are not.  This is a problem we can’t allow to be unaddressed.

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World Consumes 100 Billion Tons of Materials Every Year, Report Finds

Photo, posted March 13, 2015, courtesy of Joyce Cory via Flickr.

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Converting A Toxin Into An Industrial Chemical | Earth Wise

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Nitrogen dioxide is a prominent air pollutant produced by internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels as well as by a variety of industrial processes.  It is a toxic material associated with a number of respiratory illnesses. 

Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK along with an international team of scientists have developed a new advanced material that can convert nitrogen dioxide from an exhaust gas stream into useful industrial chemical using only water and air.

The material is a metal-organic framework (or MOF) that provides a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to capture nitrogen dioxide.  MOFs are tiny three-dimensional structures that are porous and can trap gases inside as though there were tiny cages.  MOFs have enormous amounts of surface area for their size.  One gram of material can have a surface area as large as a football field.

The material, named MOF-520, can capture nitrogen dioxide at ambient temperatures and pressures and even at low concentration and during flow in the presence of moisture, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide.  Such conditions are typical of the exhaust of internal combustion engines. In fact, the process works best at the typical temperature of automobile exhausts.

Once the nitrogen oxide is absorbed, treating the material with water in air converts it into nitric acid and restores the MOF for additional use.  Nitric acid is the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry with uses including agricultural fertilizers, rocket propellant, and nylon.  Thus, there is great potential for recouping the costs of using the MOF technology and even profiting from it.

It would be great to convert a toxic pollutant into valuable industrial chemicals.

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Clean air research converts toxic air pollutant into industrial chemical

Photo courtesy of the University of Manchester.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A Giant Seaweed Bloom

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Scientists using data from NASA satellites have discovered and documented the largest bloom of seaweed in the world, stretching all the way from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.  The gigantic macroalgae bloom has been dubbed the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. 

The brown seaweed floats in surface water and in recent years has become a problem to shorelines lining the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and east coast of Florida.  The stuff carpets popular beach destinations and crowded coastal waters. In 2018, more than 20 million tons of it floated on the ocean surface.

Scientists have been studying the Sargassum algae using satellites since 2006, but the major blooms have only started appearing since 2011.  They have occurred every year between 2011 and 2018 except for 2013.  Before 2011, most of the free-floating Sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in patches around the Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea located on the western edge of the central Atlantic Ocean.

Sargassum provides habitat for turtles, crabs, fish and birds, and produces oxygen via photosynthesis.  However, too much of it can crowd out many marine species.

According to researchers, the ocean’s chemistry must have changed in order for the bloom to get so out of hand.  The factors involved include a large seed population left over from a previous bloom, nutrient input from West Africa, and nutrient input from the Amazon River.  The increase in nutrients may be a result of deforestation and fertilizer use.

Climate-change effects on precipitation and ocean currents ultimately do play a role in this, but increased ocean temperatures do not.  Unfortunately, these giant seaweed blooms are probably here to stay.

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NASA Satellites Find Biggest Seaweed Bloom in the World

Photo courtesy of NASA.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Why Choose Chicken Over Beef?

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Food production is a major driver of climate change.  It’s responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions.  But the environmental impact of different foods varies greatly, and making seemingly insignificant changes can actually have significant impacts. 

According to a first-ever national study of U.S. eating habits and their carbon footprints, choosing chicken over beef will cut your dietary carbon footprint in half.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey asked more than 16,000 participating Americans to name all the foods they consumed in the past 24 hours. The research team then calculated the carbon footprint of what people said they ate.  If a respondent consumed broiled beef steak, for example, researchers calculated what the carbon footprint would have been had broiled chicken been consumed instead.   

The study’s findings illustrate how making one simple substitution can significantly reduce a person’s dietary carbon footprint.  A diet’s carbon footprint is the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that result from the energy, fertilizer, land use, and other inputs necessary to produce food.

In general, animal-based foods have a bigger carbon footprint than plant-based foods.  For example, producing beef uses 20 times the land and emits 20 times the emissions as growing beans (per gram of protein), and requires 10 times more resources than producing chicken. 

According to the World Resources Institute, keeping the increase in global warming below 2°C will be impossible without limiting the global rise in meat consumption. 

Last year, the EAT-Lancet Commission report found that a radical transformation of the global food system was needed because it’s threatening the stability of the climate. 

Make a change – big or small – today. 

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Choosing chicken over beef cuts our carbon footprints a surprising amount

Photo, posted August 30, 2011, courtesy of Ken Hawkins via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

A New Way To Store Hydrogen

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Several major automakers including Toyota, Honda and BMW are betting that hydrogen-fueled cars will be a dominant technology in the future.  There are a number of technical and economic problems to be solved before that can happen.  Producing hydrogen in an cost-effective and environmentally-friendly way is critical.  But beyond that, one of the biggest challenges is the transportation and storage of hydrogen.

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Greenhouses Adapt To Climate Change

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The Telangana region of India has struggled with extreme weather patterns attributed to climate change.  Extended periods of drought, heatwaves, and unpredictable heavy rainfalls have led to crop failures, mounting debt, and a heavy human toll.  More than 3,000 farmers committed suicide in Telangana during a three-year drought.

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Salt Cocktails Compromise Freshwater

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Human activities are exposing US rivers and streams to a cocktail of salts, with consequences for infrastructure and drinking water supplies. Road salt, fertilizers, and mining waste – as well as natural weathering of concrete, rocks, and soils – all contribute to increased salt in waterways. When these different salt compounds combine, their harmful effects can amplify.

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Biomimicry Is Big

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Biomimicry is learning from and then emulating nature’s forms, processes, and ecosystems to create more sustainable designs.   Mother Nature is already the inspiration for countless products and designs ranging from Velcro copied from plant burs to the shape of wind turbines modeled after whale fins.  There are wetsuits inspired by beaver pelts and office buildings that copy termite dens.  Increasingly, innovators are looking at nature for designs in architecture, chemistry, agriculture, energy, health, transportation, computing, and even for the structure of organizations and cities.

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Americans And Beef

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There’s ample evidence over the past decade or so that Americans are gradually changing their diets, driven by health concerns among other factors.  But there’s one change that really stands out.  According to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Americans have sliced their beef consumption by 19% between 2005 and 2014. 

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A New Low-Cost Battery

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Batteries have never been more important.  Not only do we all depend on cell phones, tablets and laptop computers that run on batteries, but two enormous industries are in major transitions that rely upon battery technology: personal transportation and the utility industry.   The electricity grid is increasingly turning to solar and wind power for generation and both will require effective energy storage if they are to truly become the predominant sources of electricity.

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Recycling CO2

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The X Prize Foundation provides financial incentives for innovative solutions to various technical challenges.   Topics have ranged from developing spacecraft to trying to create a real-world version of the Star Trek tricorder.   Last year, the foundation launched a $20 million challenge to come up with technologies by the year 2020 that turn carbon dioxide captured from the smokestacks of power plants into useful products.

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Preventing Toxic Algal Blooms

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We have talked about the growing problem of toxic algal blooms on a number of occasions.  The increasing occurrence of these blooms has been associated with rising temperatures and carbon dioxide levels as well as the presence of wastewater nutrients and agricultural fertilizers in rivers, lakes and reservoirs.  The most notable incident occurred in the summer of 2014, when algae contamination in Lake Erie left 400,000 residents in Ohio and Michigan without water for 72 hours.

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The Trouble With Sustainability

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Since its inception, sustainability has been human-centric. It came into vogue in 1987, with the publication of a UN report called Our Common Future, which defined sustainable development as: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

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